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Saturday, September 10, 2011

Valley of Vision

"When You lead me to the valley of vision I can see You in the heights; and though my humbling wouldn’t be my decision, it’s here Your glory shines so bright. So let me learn that the cross precedes the crown, to be low is to be high, that the valley’s where You make me more like Christ.

In the daytime there are stars in the heavens but they only shine at night and the deeper that I go into darkness the more I see their radiant light. So let me learn that my losses are my gain, to be broken is to heal, that the valley’s where Your power is revealed.

Let me find Your grace in the valley. Let me find Your life in my death. Let me find Your joy in my sorrow, Your wealth in my need. That You’re near with every breath in the valley."----

What I love about this song is the truth it brings to the reality of our trails. To go through a trail is to find yourself in the "valley of vision" - that the beauty of Christ is brighter and higher and bigger when you are so low. How often do we consider our trials actual mercies from God for us to receive his grace, his life, and his wealth in our time of need. The only supply that matters, that lasts, are his... that our losses are gain: Gaining Christ.

My favorite verse says, "In the daytime there are stars in the heavens but they only shine at night and the deeper that I go into darkness the more I see their radiant light." I can lose sight of God's radiant light, his goodness and glory and all-sufficiency in the midst of bright shiny days... yet as I go deep into the darkness of life's trails, how brightly he shines before me! The darker the night the brighter the star.

Please listen and be encouraged in the midst of your test.

"I lift up my eyes to the hills. From where does my help come? My help comes from the LORD, who made heaven and earth." Psalm 121:1-2

Adoption is the Gospel

"[Adoption is] the whole story of redemption. The universe was meant to be a home- where the image bearers of God rule and serve under their Father. It was all to be ours. The primeval insurrection in the garden, though, turned the universe into an orphanage- the heirs were gone, done in by their appetites. A serpent now holds the cosmos in captivity, driving along the deposed rulers as his slaves. The whole universe is now an orphanage.

But then there's Jesus.

When we were still orphans, Christ became a substitute orphan for us. Though he was a son, he took on the humiliation of a slave and the horror of death (Phil. 2:6-8). Jesus walked to that far country with us, even to the depths of the hog pen that we'd made our home, and hung on a tree abandoned by his Father in our place."